OUR COUNTRY VILLAGES. 243 



making every man see what a great moral and intellectual good 

 comes from cheerfully bearing a part in the burden of popular edu- 

 cation. Let us next take up popular refinement in the arts, manners, 

 social life, and innocent enjoyments, and we shall see what a virtuous 

 and educated republic can really become. 



Besides this, it is the proper duty of the state that is, the people 

 to do in this way what the reigning power does in a monarchy. 

 If the kings and princes in Germany, and the sovereign of England, 

 have made magnificent parks and pleasure-gardens, and thrown 

 them wide open for the enjoyment of all classes of the people (the 

 latter, after all, having to pay for it), may it not be that our sover- 

 eign people will (far more cheaply, as they may) make and support 

 these great and healthy sources of pleasure and refinement for 

 themselves in America ? We believe so ; and we confidently wait 

 for the time when public parks, public gardens, public galleries, and 

 tasteful villages, shall be among the peculiar features of our happy 

 republic. 



